Chapter 12 - The Third Sister
Hannah was alive.
Or had survived long enough for someone to hide her.
Stevens explained that after the fire, Hannah regained consciousness confused and frightened.
Michael Bennett arrived.
My father.
He demanded that hospital staff separate us.
Why?
Because Hannah had seen what happened before the fire.
Diane had indeed given us sedatives.
But someone else instructed her.
Michael.
My father.
He had been having an affair with Diane.
My mother discovered it.
That night, she confronted them.
Hannah woke.
Then Rebecca—me.
There was shouting.
A lamp fell.
Fire started accidentally.
Thomas Patterson, who was also involved with Diane, arrived unexpectedly.
The entire disaster grew from secrets colliding in one house.
But that still didn’t explain Hannah disappearing.
“Michael told your mother Hannah died,” Stevens said.
“And me?”
“You were told the same.”
“What happened to Hannah?”
“Michael arranged private care.”
“Where?”
Stevens looked ashamed.
“A residential facility.”
Under another name.
My father had erased his own daughter because she could expose him.
Stevens helped alter the records.
Diane remained silent because she was implicated.
Thomas knew enough to become dangerous.
David later discovered everything and began blackmailing them.
A family secret became an industry.
“Is Hannah alive now?”
Stevens nodded.
“Yes.”
My knees weakened.
“Where?”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“Closer than you think.”
Laura had found Hannah approximately a year earlier.
She introduced Emma to her once.
That was why Emma began talking about the red room.
Not supernatural memory.
Not impossible knowledge.
Hannah had told her.
Emma was repeating fragments she was too young to understand.
Diane panicked.
She feared Hannah was using Emma to awaken my memories.
So she started making Emma sleepy.
Making her confused.
Teaching her not to tell.
Exactly what she had done to us.
“Where is Hannah?” I repeated.
Stevens refused to answer.
Detective Coleman leaned forward.
“Then you’re obstructing an active child-endangerment investigation.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You think I’m protecting myself?”
“Who?”
“Hannah.”
That confused me.
Then he explained.
Hannah did not want to be found.
She had spent decades under another identity.
A husband.
Children.
A career.
Revealing her could destroy a life she built from nothing.
I understood that.
But she had contacted Emma.
“She wanted Rebecca to remember,” Stevens said.
“Why now?”
“Because Laura found something.”
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Your parents’ wills.”
My parents had supposedly left everything equally to me.
But an earlier will named two daughters.
Rebecca and Hannah.
Someone changed it after the fire.
Millions had passed to me that legally might belong partly to Hannah.
I felt sick.
This was never merely about childhood guilt.
Money had been hidden inside the lie.
Then Detective Coleman received a call.
David Collins had been found.
Alive.
Badly injured after crashing his car while fleeing.
In the trunk, police discovered Laura’s handbag.
And a photograph.
Laura standing beside Hannah.
I recognized Hannah immediately.
May you like
Because I had seen her earlier that day.
She was the social worker assigned to Emma.
